Kolgrima - A Tour Of Trolls

For my first Tour of Trolls post, I decided to go with Kolgrima, our newest warlock.  

When she went through CID I was utterly meh on her and was too focused on all the other changes to the faction during the few playtest games I was able to conduct and report on the forum.  I had no idea how wrong I was about her!

Even when she came out I didn't really dojo with her, all the other changes really commanded my attention until it came time to find a tournament pair for the inevitable Madrak1 list I had cooked up.

I really think I've got a winner with this list, it pairs great with Madrak1 Band of Heroes and it's frankly terrifying in its own right:

War Room Army

Trollblood - A Song of Ice & Fire
Theme: The Power of Dhunia
3 / 3 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army

Kolgrima Stonetruth, Winter Witch - WB: +28
- Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
- Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
- Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 14 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)
- Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 14
- Mulg the Ancient - PC: 22
- Troll Axer - PC: 10

Northkin Shaman - PC: 0
Northkin Shaman - PC: 0

Croak Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
- Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3

THEME: The Power of Dhunia

The Theory Behind the List

I wanted something that could answer gunlines, especially Cygnar with Haley3 Grave Diggers coming up as a particularly scary boogeyman in the meta.   I think Kolgrima clearly prefers having a classic Troll Beast Brick given that she gets an incredible amount of use out of the New Mulg™.  This means we're going to be playing Power of Dhunia (PoD), which really limits our infantry choices.

The problem with nearly all Power of Dhunia (PoD) lists is that if your opponent has more than one infantry unit, it's very easy for your opponent to bog down a big beast brick and take you down, and the Runeshapers you can take as your own infantry just don't do very well against a lot of other opposing dudes.

My eureka moment was realizing that the single minions unit we can take with the new theme changes really can change how PoD plays.  Farrow Brigands, Nyss Hunters, and Croak Raiders all seem to be strong choices as a ranged anti-infantry option.  I already owned some Croaks from MK2 and they were both the cheapest option (once you consider the near mandatory Brigand Warlord) and they were recently buffed to POW 11 on their guns and given Pathfinder natively.

What's better is that Kolgrima really turns these guys on as an anti-infantry option with her spell Cursed Fate.  The Croaks become effectively RAT 8 and it doesn't matter what armor your target infantry has, they just take an auto point of damage when hit!   

Things like Iron Fang Pikemen, Dawnguard Sentinels, or Houseguard Halberdiers, or Banes under the Wraith Engine Aura that would all normally be a huge problem for a PoD beast brick to deal with suddenly melt away under these guns.  

But wait, there's more! Kolgrima has an insane SP10 POW12 spell that has effectively Signs and Portents for attack and damage. With Mulg as a quasi arc node, you can cast out multiple Cursed Fates on different units and then simply spray them all down.  She even deals with nearly impossible to take down at range troops like Satyxis Raiders since she's using a spell, not a ranged attack.

If this is all that Kolgrima did, she'd already be a strong caster for any PoD list given that she really helps take down infantry that would otherwise give you fits, but there's still more!

Kolgrima can build a cloud wall in trolls, where playing in PoD lets you take Northkin Shaman as free solo options, which can further extend your cloud wall.  On top of that there is Kolgrima's feat, which is effectively a Hard-No on guns: any enemies in her control area when she feats can't make ranged attacks! On top of this they get pushed 2" directly away from her, lose Pathfinder, Eyeless Sight, and Flight.  

She can be a very strong answer to things like Haley 3 Grave Diggers and can really help deliver a full Troll Beast Brick, possibly even giving you the alpha due to the cloud wall.  This was all the theory I had going in, and here's what I realized on the table.

My Results

I've played this list into two Khador lists: Irusk2 with 30 Iron Fang Pikemen + Conquest and an Old Witch 2 list with 7 heavies in Jaws of the Wolf.  I won both games on scenario, despite both lists being wildly different.

Gamer Dad's have to go to extreme measures to get our games in some times!

Against Irusk2 we played Standoff.  Irusk2 can answer the cloud wall with his feat, but I was fortunate enough to be able to go first in our game.  This enabled me to use the Croaks and Mulg's arc node ability to wipe almost 20 Pikemen from the table on my second turn.  All the while I was slowly scoring points, and by turn 3, I was able to deny my opponent from scoring any points at all, letting me get ahead a little.  Once my opponents first 20 pikemen were dead, I was able to send my beasts into his Colossal and get ahead on piece trades while staying up a little on points and eventually his remaining pikemen unit was too busy trying to deal with the beasts in the only zone he could score to stop me from scoring elsewhere to win via 5CP.  I think the matchup is harder for Kolgrima if she can't go first, but it's still doable if you position properly.

Against Old Witch 3 I was facing down 2x Marauders, 2x Juggernauts, 1 Spriggan, and 2 Marshalled Destroyers on the Pit 2 scenario.

I was forced to go second and used my clouds to protect most of my heavies and my Croaks.  My opponent had to either walk into my threat ranges or just toe the zones for his turn 2, he opted to just toe the zones with heavies and some infantry, not realizing she could get into a position to feat him out of all the zones. 

I was able to live the dream in this game and line it up so Kolgrima was in the center of the board and had her feat push every enemy model out of all the zones, with me sending in an Earthborn to kill an objective to get 4 CP's on the bottom of Turn 2!  From here out I would be fighting to come up ahead against 7 heavies to 4 Heavies + 1 Light, but when my opponent went in on Mulg with a Boundless Charged + 3 Focus Spriggan, Mulg was able to Primal Rage and get a very lucky Crit Slam to send the Spriggan away. This swung the game from an attrition race for me to score the last CP's as his heavy advantage came to bear to an easy victory on my part.  I still think I would be able to pull out a win with how the board position was, but it would have been dicey.

Conclusions

Kolgrima feels really, really strong especially as a pair to a troop heavy Madrak1 list that I'm currently running.  She's a quasi-control caster with LOS denial and shooting denial, as well as a feat that can really help you get ahead on scenario.  All the other changes we got in CID helped her list immensely: Arcane Repeater on the Runebearer and the Stone generating its own Fury really help her spend her 7 fury down on her feat turn where you can largely use distance to keep her safe from assassination.  I haven't even really had to make use of her Owl's Wisdom spell denial, but she can do it to herself to prevent any spell assassinations when you feat to deny shooting, and use distance to keep yourself safe from melee threats.

I'm sure Kolgrima can be built to deliver an infantry or balanced Troll list if you wanted, though it certainly seems like right now she's best using Power of Dhunia and a shooting minion unit to support the beast brick.   She's definitely got a lot of power and options for us to explore going forward, and I look forward to experimenting with her more.

If We Don't Save History, No One Will

The only surviving recordings of long dead indigenous tribes. Numerous Egyptian mummies, including an unopened coffin. Frescoes that survived the eruption of Vesuvius. Artifacts from the Nazca and Inca cultures, including a 3,500 year old Chilean man. An impeccable fossil record that boasted of 110 million year turtles, the nation's largest sauropods, and its most unique carnivores. The biological collections of hundreds of diverse insects and birds. An invaulable record of our global heritage, the fruits of 200 years of labor, were in one night baked, burned, and broiled. Brazil's independence day, for many, came not with cheers, but with weeping.



Brazil is far from the only place where history is threatened or destroyed. The Taj Mahal is now so discolored and degraded by air pollution that an Indian Supreme Court has suggested either shutdown or demolition. The Notre Dame de Paris is falling apart and is in need of a $114 million restoration, which currently relies on foreign donations. 2,000 kilometers of the Great Wall of China have disappeared since the Ming Dynasty, with only 8.2% of it in good condition according to a 2014 study. The Colosseum is routinely vandalized by tourists. In 2014, the beard on Tutenkhamen's mask snapped off during cleaning and was crudely glued back on, but thankfully repaired with beeswax by professionals in 2015. Consider too our natural history. The Great Barrier Reef is being bleached into ruin by rising ocean temperatures. Everest, our highest peak, is accumulating trash and human waste. Severe droughts influenced by climate change are degrading the Amazon rainforest. Floating islands of garbage are filling our oceans and farm pollution has produced an oxygen-lacking dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Will Venice, New Orleans, or the Maldives still be above land when the seas rise? How much access to their history and culture will be lost as a result?

This century alone has seen incalculable loss to the greatest treasures of history. In 2007, IKEA destroyed ten ancient tombs dating back 1,800 years to make room for construction in China's Nanjing province. Greenpeace lost much of its credibility as a conservationist movement in 2015 when its activists illegally crossed into the Nazca Lines and permanently damaged the soil. In 2013, a 2,300 year old Mayan pyramid was bulldozed so its limestone could make new roads. That same year, a 5,000 year old pyramid was bulldozed by construction companies in Peru. In 2014, a 5,000 year old rock painting in Quesada, Spain was destroyed by thieves who tried to steal it. ISIS, ravaged the glory of the Middle East in Mosul by destroying statues that date to Assyrian and Akkadian eras, blew up the tomb of Jonah, and brought ruin to Syria's historic Palmyra. Meanwhile our "ally", Saudi Arabia, continued its rape and pillage of Islamic heritage in Mecca by building a garish clocktower over a historic Ottoman fortress. Never mind the botched art "restorations": The Roman mosaics in Turkey, a 500 year old St. George statue in Spain, and new concrete was slapped onto the Spanish medieval castle of Matrera. On and on and on it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

We lament the burning of Alexandria's library by Ceasar's army, the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, the smashing of Qurayshi idols by Muhammad, Napoleon's army using the Sphinx for target practice, Heinrich Schliemann's careless erasure of Troy, the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople and melted bronze Roman statues into coins, the carzed hammer attack on Michelangelo's Pieta, the Taliban's literal "defacing" of Buddhist statues, Saddam Hussein's crude makeover of ancient Babylon, and the current idiot-in-chief's demolition of priceless Art Deco sculptures to save money on phallic tower, but we are not far from the mistakes of history, and history has all too often repeated itself.

We are grateful to the Irish monks and Muslim scholars who kept the wisdom of the Greco-Roman Ancients alive, to First Lady Dolley Madison for rescuing Stuart's portrait of Washington from the White House fire, to Secretary of War Henry Stimson for knocking Kyoto off the firebombing list during the Pacific War, to the Malians of Timbuktu who saved their ancient manuscripts from the Turaeg rebels, and many others, but such heroes are few and far between. History always has so very few heroes.

The greatest threats to history are war, greed, dictatorship, vandalism, and negligence. The latter was what struck Brazil's museum. Brazilians have complained of austerity measures that cut funding to the musuem's upkeep. A situation so terrible that the museum did not have fire sprinklers, that even my college apartment has, nor were firefighters able to access hydrants to put the fires out. Brazil could apparently afford to host the World Cup in 2014, the Summer Olympics in 2016, but not to install fire sprinklers in its national museum. This is what happens when profit is put over people. If our history isn't even safe in musuems, among the curators, then it isn't safe anywhere. We must redouble our efforts, all of us, as global citizens, so that access to the treasures of our heritage, the lineage of our ancestors, the very stuff that makes us human, is never again erased from the modern memory. Even here, there is hope. After the tomb of Jonah was destroyed, archaeologists discovered an Assyrian palace not seen since 7th century BC. There's a lesson in that, perhaps.

DevCorner: Atomic Game Engine MIT (Urho3D Fork) And Godot 2.0

First off (and you probably read it elsewhere before): The awesome Godot game engine got a really awesome 2.0 release a few weeks ago. It also got independent of it's original developers (who stay active in development), and the first larger commercial game with it was released on Steam just a few days ago.

Fresh of the press is a FOSS release of an pretty awesome competitor though:
The Atomic Game Engine was just released fully under the MIT license! Its render engine is a fork of the pretty nice Urho3D renderer, but it includes an cross-platform integrated development environment similar to Godot:

Looks nice, but where is the Linux binary release? :(

Dive into the source code here. Similar to Godot it features some neat platform support: Linux, Android, WebGL, Windows, iOS and OSX (resorted for significance ;) ); but unlike it you have much more and more common scripting languages at your disposal: JavaScript, TypeScript, C++, and C# scripting in the works. Especially the latter could be interesting if someone manages to make an Unity3D compatibility layer for migrating and open-sourcing Unity games...

For a nice overview, don't miss the GamesFromScratch video and introduction tutorial (from back in December 2015 when it was not yet MIT licensed):

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.